Friday, November 24, 2006

dante would feel right at home

It's that time of year again: bushfire season. We've just moved onto level 2 water restrictions in Canberra due to lack of rain, and in the state next door, New South Wales, fire has destroyed over 15,000 hectares of national park in the Blue Mountains and over 21,000 hectares of land in the Hunter Valley. More than 40 fires are still burning. The firefighters have contained some with backburning, but other fires are still out of control. Next week temperatures are expected to hit 40 degrees (celcius) by Thursday , so they want to do as much as possible by the end of the weekend.

In Victoria another 11,000 hectares of scrub has burned. One hundred and sixty fire fighters worked through the night last night to strengthen control lines around that bushfire. About 90 per cent of the fire has been contained, and luckily they’ve avoided it going into an area of pine plantations. Victoria is luckier than NSW. The fire there started on Tuesday (lightning) and is almost completely contained. The NSW fires have been burning for 11 days. It’s a sign of just how big this country is that no-one has died and no houses have burned. Sad though how much wildlife will be lost.